n Suzuki World Rally Team has confirmed that it plans to announce the identity of it’s new Team Manager this afternoon (Monday). n Portuguese rally champion Bruno Magalhaes won the opening round of the 2008 national series, the Rali Torrie at Povoa de Lanhoso, in the national team’s Peugeot 207 S2000. Second place was taken by 19-year-old Bernardo Sousa, the privateer who is also contesting this year’s Production Car WRC series in a private Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. Sousa beat the Fiat Grande Punto S2000 of Jose Pedro Fontes, which lost time in final service because the engine refused to restart. n The Race Retro 2008 show at Stoneleigh Park near Coventry is being held Friday 14 through to Sunday 16 March, and features many rallying items, including parades of old Group B cars. Among many leading rally personalities to attend are Markku Alen and Bjorn Waldegard. Note: the show is not open in the evenings. n Tahko Spa Rally, Finland’s third and final major winter rally of the season was run at Mantta last weekend, and was won by Jussi Valimaki in a Group A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII. Second-placed Ari Vihavainen (Focus WRC) leads the national Group A championship while Juha Salo, who retired after going into a snowbank, still leads the Group N category. SPECIAL StAGEs WORLD championship Ford team company M- Sport has announced that 25 year old Fiesta Sporting Trophy International champion Barry Clark from Scotland has won a prize-drive in a World Rally Car on a world championship event this year. Furthermore, two more such entries on events this season are to be separately funded through Clark’s family’s businesses. The events concerned are Turkey (when he will run in Munchi’s team colours) and Corsica and Wales Rally Great Britian when he will run in Stobart colours. Clark has very little four-wheel drive rally experience though he finished eighth Group N car on the 2007 Wales Rally GB in a Subaru. He was also British N champion in a Subaru in 2005. In 2006 he was FIA’s JWRC Rookie champion in a Fiesta. He is no relation to former works Ford rally driver and British champion, the late Roger Clark, who won the RAC in 1972 and 1976 – MARTIN HOLMES Clark gets WRC starts IN conjunction with tyre supplier BF Goodrich, the organisers of the Rally of Portugal (9-10 May) have been selected as one of five organisers of IRC championship events looking to help find a new top driver from their respective country. The selected driver will then join the Kronos team and contest the event in a third Peugeot 207 Super 2000 entry alongside regular drivers Freddy Loix and Nicolas Vouilloz. The other four IRC events with a similar project are Sanremo, Ypres, Asturias and the Barum Rally in the Czech Republic. Announced in Lisbon on March 5 were the details of how aspiring drivers should apply. It was also confirmed that three other guest drivers will also take part and challenge the regular IRC competitors on the event. These will be the semi- retired 1994 world champion Didier Auriol, the aspiring Belgian Francois Duval, both to drive in Fiat Grande Punto S2000 cars, and the Finn Juho Hanninen in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX Group N car. The Rally of Portugal was run as a WRC event in 2007 and will again in 2009, so the opportunity to hold the event as a qualifying round of the IRC in 2008 keeps the organisation intact. A parallel find-a-driver scheme, based on FIA regional championship events, is being run by Pirelli, the world championship tyre supplier. Details are yet to be announced. – MARTIN HOLMES Portugal/Kronos seeks a driver